Sermons

The Rev. Joseph Farnes

All Saints, Boise

Easter 4B

In the counseling program I’m in, we’ve talked about professional ethics, how to navigate the tricky and messy waters when working with human beings. It’s important to have a guide!

Most of us think that ethics is about finding the difference between right and wrong; ethics is more complicated than that. Ethics is more than saying something is morally wrong; ethics is about figuring out what to do when two things seem right, how to make a decision in a complicated situation, how to do something when we’re stuck between two values we hold dear. Ethics sees the nuance, and it does not give us an easy way out. Ethics can leave us uncomfortable when we can’t walk away knowing that we 100% did the right thing.

Ethics are also a hard thing to legislate. Laws can only give so much nuance, and then it is up to a court of law to determine the facts of the case and apply the laws as best as they can. That nuance gets awfully uncomfortable when your morality makes little room for ambiguity, for the messiness of life. We want right to be right and wrong to be wrong.

And I get it. It feels like stuff should be easy to figure out. We want a universe where there is always a right decision, a perfect course of action. But that’s not the universe we have – we have a messy universe filled with living, breathing people, not abstract concepts.

And our political world – there is a lot of energy and support to be gained from moral panic and righteous indignation. We are right, they are wrong – it’s a clear line in the sand that divides the Good from Evil … or so we think. Politics is just as messy as life. While the Idaho legislature has adjourned for the year, our national politics will be firing up even hotter for the November election. I can feel my muscles tense and my heart pound just thinking about all that could possibly happen. So how are we going to get through it?

First, let’s turn to the Gospel. Listen to what Jesus says the predator is doing to the sheep. The predator snatches the sheep and scatters them.

What snatches your attention? Anger and fear. Anger and fear are two powerful emotions. If someone makes you angry, makes you seethe with rage at someone or something, it’s easy to control you. If someone makes you afraid, makes you terrified that someone or something is going to hurt you, it’s easy for them to say that they are your only hope, your only protection.

We’ve seen that in the world, haven’t we? We’ve seen that play throughout history. We get angry at “those people.” They threaten our livelihoods, our place in society, our wealth – we’re afraid of losing. Change is scary. We’re mad that the world isn’t what we want it to be, and we’re going to take it out on someone.

Anger and fear are at a deeper part of our brain. They are important emotions – they highlight us to danger and injustice. But that doesn’t mean they are correct in how they read the situation. Sometimes we’re afraid when nothing is wrong – when we turn off the lights to the basement stairs late at night and run up fast so the bogeyman in the basement can’t catch us. We know nothing’s really there. We’ve been there during the day. We rationally know. But the part of our brain that gets afraid says, “well but WHAT IF?” and so we run up the stairs to the safety of upstairs. And sometimes we get mad when nothing’s wrong – we drop something on the floor, and now we have to get a broom to sweep it up, and then we spiral into grumbling at everything and everyone, including being mad at ourselves.

Anger and fear sit deep inside the brain. They can sometimes help keep us safe – but very often, especially in a world where everyone and everything is clamoring for our attention, anger and fear are where we get hooked, we get snatched and dragged away, and our attention is scattered.

Watch for it – where do anger and fear show up? You don’t have to make a decision about what to do. Just notice. Watch. Are you being snatched away, are you being scattered?

It’s not easy to do. It’s not easy to be discerning in a world that demands instant response. The world we live in wants everything fast – it wants a response now. Don’t think! Just react!

We are called to be Christians, to be discerning and wise … and loving. We’re not called to react; we’re called to respond. To listen, and then think, and then speak. The first letter of John is an invitation to ethics and discernment.

We follow Christ, who laid down his life for us – therefore, we should do that for one another. Christ sees us in our needs – and he helped us and saved us and healed us. Shouldn’t we do the same to follow in his footsteps? We follow Christ, who showed us that love is a verb, an action word.

And that gives us boldness to act. Real boldness. Not a boldness born of fear or anger – that becomes cowardice or revenge. No, Christ gives us a boldness that trusts in God, that in the midst of the messiness of life, we can do good. We can obey Christ’s commands: to love God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, with all our strength, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to love one another as Christ loved us. That is our ethical guide, and that is our guide in the messiness of life.

It’s not easy. We don’t get it right all the time. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what is the most loving thing to do in the moment. Sometimes we even have to figure out if our idea of love needs adjusting – and so we look to Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, our savior.

But the world needs this badly.

Instead of being snatched by a spirit of anger, let us have peace in the love of God. Instead of being scattered by a spirit of fear, let us have fellowship in the name of Christ. The love of Christ will never lead us wrong. The love of Christ walks us through green pastures, as the Psalm says, and it accompanies us in the valley of the shadow of death, too. In all times, in all places, the love of Christ shepherds us. The love of Christ will never lead us wrong. Amen.

The Rev. Joseph Farnes

All Saints, Boise

Easter 3B

April 14, 2024

The Gospel of Luke takes the extra effort to tell us about the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus really did die, he really was raised – with his fleshly body and also a spiritual body. Jesus isn’t a ghost because he has a body. He has his wounds; he can eat a piece of fish. And that body is something more than what we experience. Jesus appears to disciples, he speaks… and then he disappears.

Resurrection is real and physical – it’s something we can touch, it’s not an idea or a concept. But resurrection is mysterious – it doesn’t perfectly line up with what we experience.

And then there’s the other aspect of the Resurrected Jesus … he doesn’t stick around for long. Each Gospel gives a few resurrection appearances, but just a few. Right after today’s Gospel reading, Jesus leads his disciples to Bethany, blesses them, and then ascends to heaven.

We only get a few little glimpses of the resurrection. It’s real, it’s physical, it’s mysterious. But it’s definitely not otherworldly.

Jesus didn’t overcome the power of death to deny or reject our this-worldly life. Jesus continually points his disciples back to the world. Go and preach. Go and teach. Go and change the world. Go and bring people together. Go and heal. Go and do.

The book of Acts points to that. The letters of Paul and the rest of the New Testament say that. Go, and do.

Go, and do what Jesus would do. Heal the sick, rebuke hypocrisy, pray and work for peace and justice, call for repentance and proclaim forgiveness. Go, and do good in the name of Jesus.

Go, and do. Not even death can stop the power and ministry of Jesus. Go, and do. It’s a life of freedom to do good.

We’re not stuck in the shame of our own failures, because we are given a spirit of humility. We admit our sins and mistakes, we work to make it right, and we try again.

We’re not afraid of being judged: as too merciful, as too big-hearted. The heart of Jesus is too big for ours to be small.

We’re not discouraged just how daunting it can all seem. We work for justice and peace in the world, and we work for justice and peace in our state and our community. We do what we can with great hope, and we know the power of Jesus’ name to make even small seeds bear fruit.

We’re not embarrassed to be people of prayer. We gather to pray, to praise God, to spend time together on beautiful Sunday mornings to worship God. We take time in our daily lives to pray, to have spiritual conversations with friends and family, to point to the “big questions” of life, of meaning and goodness. We sit in silence to pray, we go outside and admire the beauty of creation and adore its Creator. We make all things holy with prayer.

Go, and do. Go in the name of Jesus, and do the works of Jesus.

Every Sunday we are sent forth at the end of the Eucharist with the dismissal. Go, and do. That is the meaning of the Resurrection in our lives. Go in the name of Jesus, and do the works of Jesus. Amen.

The Rev. Joseph Farnes

All Saints, Boise

Holy Week and Easter 2024

MAUNDY THURSDAY: TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER

          On Maundy Thursday we get a new mandatum, a new commandment: to love one another as Christ has loved us. This commandment is so foundational to Christianity and yet it is the hardest one to practice. It commands us to do what feels impossible: to love another as Christ himself has loved us. Christ, who is Love made flesh, “the Love that came down at Christmas” as Christina Rosetti’s powerful poem proclaims, it is this love to which we are called in loving one another.

          This is not a love we can abstract our ways out of. I’ve seen people jump through ethical hoops to avoid having to really love someone. “Hate the sin, love the sinner” has very little love for the sinner, and “I love you so much I’m telling you to convert so you don’t get sent to hell by a loving God” is hardly the invitation to love that they think it is.

          But Jesus loves deeply. He loves Peter who denies him, he loves even the one who betrayed him. Jesus washed Judas’ feet and fed him. Jesus’s sharpest words were always reserved for hypocrites, yet he loved them, too. Jesus goes up to the cross and opens his heart to the whole world and offers his whole life and death for all.

          No abstract love here – Christians must love as Christ loves.

          I wonder sometimes whether we should read this passage during the passing of the peace. The peace of God is also an expression of the love of God that draws us together in Eucharist. The Eucharist is not only for our personal growth in Christ – it is drawing us together to love one another as Christ has loved us. Your vestry has been reading this commandment of Christ, month by month, to remind ourselves that we are commanded to love one another as Christ has loved us.

          Love is not a new thing in Christianity – it is the very heartbeat of our faith. The Bible tells us this is what we are called to do, Jesus himself said it. But let’s turn to another part of the Scripture to tell us what love means. As the First Letter of John says so well, and which we will hear again in a few weeks:

          Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1 John 4:7-21)

          Love one another, as Christ himself has loved us. The world shall know that we are Christ’s disciples, if we have love for one another.

GOOD FRIDAY: THE CRUCIFIXION

          The cross is at the heart of Christianity. What the Roman Empire used to terrify and dehumanize and oppress, Christ took upon himself to break its power. Jesus ascends the cross, suffers, and dies, through his suffering and death he breaks the power of death and sin. Jesus takes our mortal flesh upon himself, he suffers, and he dies. His arms stretch out upon the wood of the cross to embrace creation.

          On this day, words so frequently fail. The cross is a greater mystery than we can tell. But poets and mystics can do a better job than a preacher on this day. Hear first the words of the ancient Christian poet, Venantius Fortunatus translated from the Latin:[1]

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle;

of the mighty conflict sing;

tell the triumph of the victim,

to his cross thy tribute bring.

Jesus Christ, the world’s Redeemer

from that cross now reigns as King.

Thirty years among us dwelling,

his appointed time fulfilled,

born for this, he meets his passion,

this the Savior freely willed:

on the cross the Lamb is lifted,

where his precious blood is spilled.

He endures the nails, the spitting,

vinegar, and spear, and reed;

from that holy body broken

blood and water forth proceed:

earth, and stars, and sky, and ocean,

by that flood from stain are freed.

Faithful cross! above all other,

one and only noble tree!

None in foliage, none in blossom,

none in fruit thy peer may be:

sweetest wood and sweetest iron!

sweetest weight is hung on thee.

Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory!

Thy relaxing sinews bend;

for awhile the ancient rigor

that thy birth bestowed, suspend;

and the King of heavenly beauty

gently on thine arms extend.

And now hear the words of the medieval Christian mystical theologian, Julian of Norwich, translated from the Middle English:[2]

Our faith teaches us (and these revelations confirm) that Christ is both God and human. Regarding the Godhead, he is our supreme bliss, and has been since the beginning of time and shall be until the end. This boundless joy, by its very nature, cannot be increased or decreased. This was beautifully revealed when he said, “It is I who am most exalted.”

Regarding Christ’s humanity, our faith teaches us (and these revelations confirm) that, with the power of the Godhead and for the sake of love, he endured unspeakable suffering – his passion and his dying – to bring us into his bliss. These are the offerings of Christ’s humanity, and he rejoices in them. He assured us of this when he said, “It is a source of endless joy, bliss, and delight to me that I suffered my passion for you.” This is the sublime beauty of Christ’s actions. This is what he meant when he said, “You are my bliss; my reward, my honor, and my crown.”

And Christ is our crown, also. He is our head! In his glorified form, he transcends all suffering. In his humanity, into which all human beings are woven, he is not yet fully glorified and is not beyond suffering. He still feels that burning thirst he felt on the cross. As I see it, Christ’s thirst – his desire and his longing – has been with him always, and always will be, until the last soul is liberated and is lifted into his bliss.

As truly as God embodies the quality of compassion and mercy, so does he embody the quality of thirst and longing. The power of this longing in Christ awakens the longing in us. Indeed, we cannot come to paradise without this holy yearning. The quality of thirst and longing, just as much as the quality of mercy, is rooted in the boundless goodness of God. These are two different things. As long as we are in need, Christ will continue to experience the very essence of spiritual thirst, and the energy of his longing draws us to himself. And so he has mercy on us, and he yearns for us, but his wisdom and his love do not allow him to put an end to this longing until the perfect time.

GOOD FRIDAY: THE BURIAL

          Culturally we have lost the ability to grieve well. The rituals around dying and death have faded, and death itself is pushed away, compartmentalized, sanitized.

          In years past, if one was blessed enough to die at home, your family or friends would gather around your body. They would lovingly wash you, clothe you, tend to you. The weirdness of a dead body was not so foreign. Death was there, it was visible. Others might gather to pray around you, your priest may be there to have said the final prayers, and now preparations would be made to gather at the church to celebrate your Requiem mass, to commend you to your “requiem aeternam,” the Latin phrase for “Eternal Rest.” The rituals of grief helped us along as a community, and they connected us to Christ.

          Joseph of Arimathea receives the body of Christ and places him in his own tomb. The Gospels differ on who anoints and prepares Jesus’ body after his death: some Gospel accounts point to Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, the others say the holy women who had been part of the company of disciples since Galilee do the anointing work. In his death, they lovingly cared for him, held him, dressed him.

          Our culture doesn’t know what to do with death. We call the funeral home to take our loved one away, to dress them, to use chemicals and devices to make them look their best. Our loved one disappears, and we are left in grief, waiting to receive them back. They die, they disappear.

          Just as the soul is sacred, so too is the body. God created the soul, God created the body. We are incarnational. The beauty and strangeness of the body is a wonder to behold. The body’s ability to keep going even after injury and illness, the body’s ability to heal, the countless proteins and enzymes, the endless strands of DNA that are compressed into our cells: what a wonder! The body is a wonder not just because it “houses” a soul – the body is a sacred wonder in its own right. It’s the wonder we can see, and touch, and hear.

          They take the body, wash him, anoint him, and dress him. It is sacred work. Attentive. It takes its time. Just as at the altar we take our time, unfolding the linens, setting the table, no rushing, with that kind of care these disciples prepared the body of Christ. Jesus cannot do anything to thank them for their gift and their kindness. The disciples whose feet Jesus washed at the Last Supper are nowhere to be found to wash his body in his death. The disciples that Jesus fed with his body and blood at the Last Supper have vanished, and it is these other disciples that wash his body and clean his blood.

          To mourn is to love. To mourn is a brave work. To mourn is to sit with the memory, if not the body, of one we love. It pains us to sit with a broken heart. But it is not a despairing love that gives up. It continues on. These disciples tended to the body of Christ with great love – and they keep living. They grieved, they mourned – and they loved, and they lived.

          We sit in the tomb with our loved ones. And, one day, loved ones will sit with us in our tomb. We abide with the truth that death is inevitable, and we proclaim our faithful hope that death is not the last word. And yet, we must mourn because we love.

EASTER VIGIL: THE CREATION

          On the first day … on the second day … on the third day … God creates. God makes. God stretches out the heavens.

          Ancient humans looked at the stars and told stories. They marveled at the starry night sky in a way that we can only find far, far away from home in the wilderness. They saw this great grandeur – though they could not fathom just how vast, vast, vast the universe truly is … not that we can really comprehend it, either. Countless stars on the darkness of the sky. It’s beautiful.

          And from that great vision, we turn our attention to the small. The universe that is revealed as we use a microscope to look closer at the smallest things. How tiny bacteria are! Or even smaller – how proteins fold and bend. Or even smaller – how atoms are composed of protons, neutrons, and a surrounding cloud of electrons… or even smaller!

          What wonders God has made! And God loves it all into being, and God loves it still.

EASTER VIGIL: THE PROPHET ISAIAH

          Everyone who thirsts, come drink! Everyone who hungers, come eat! God calls one, and God calls us all. Will we accept the invitation? Will we join in the feast?

          God has sent out the invitation over the centuries, throughout the ages: to celebrate with him, to join in the work of the Kingdom of Heaven, to seek the Lord’s ways instead of our own. In this we find freedom and joy, in this we find peace and fulfillment.

          Those who are hungry will come to the banquet. Those who are thirsty will drink deep of the Lord’s delights. Do we hunger for that which is nourishing? Do we thirst for the goodness of the Lord? Do we hunger and thirst for our own sake, and do we hunger and thirst for others’ sake, to bring them to the banquet, too?

          The invitation has been sent. Will we join the feast?

EASTER VIGIL: THE PROPHET ZEPHANIAH

          The LORD rejoices over you, we hear. Are we bold enough to believe that God delights in us? This is no begrudging kindness, no obligatory mercy in God – this is delight, this is joy that God has for us.

          God has such joy in us! God knows us so deeply and completely and perfectly, and God delights in us. God rejoices. It would be foolish to tell God that, no, no, God cannot rejoice over us because we’re not good enough, it’s not right. Do we dare to tell God how he is allowed to feel? On this queen of feasts, this sacred night of Easter, let us be ready to rejoice. To rejoice in God’s triumph, to rejoice in God’s love for us, to rejoice in God’s rejoicing. Joy, joy, joy without end.

EASTER DAY: ST MARY MAGDALENE AND THE EMPTY TOMB

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed!

          One of my most favorite lines from the Rule of St Benedict, that founder of monasticism in the West, is “To Prefer Nothing to the Love of Christ.”[3] St Benedict says that this is one of the foundational tools of the Christian life, that we put nothing before the love of Christ. The love of Christ is at the heart, the very center of what it means to be a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus.

          Now, if you’re a grammar nerd, you might be wondering, “well, what exactly does ‘love of Christ’ mean?” Does it mean our love of Christ – that we should prefer nothing to loving Jesus? That when it comes down to it, Jesus is the #1 love in our heart?

          Or what if it’s the other way: does it mean preferring nothing to Jesus’s love for us? Does it mean that we set aside everything else and cherish Jesus’ love for us more than anything, that fame and fortune and everything we could wish for would not be as wonderful as cherishing Jesus’ love for us?

          Hm, what do you think?

          Show of hands: raise your hand if you think it means, “We should prefer nothing to loving Jesus.”

          And now raise your hand if you think it means, “We should prefer nothing to Jesus’ love for us.”

          And now raise your hand if you can already see where I’m going with this: that it’s both.

          Yes, it’s both. Love for Jesus, and the love Jesus has for us. With that love, what else could we want?

          And St Mary Magdalene is our icon of that love, both ways.

          St Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb to care for the body of Jesus. The stone is rolled away. She panics. Something has happened – someone has stolen the body of Jesus! She loves him deeply. She runs back to get the disciples who show up, investigate … and then leave. Mary Magdalene stays put, though. She’s not leaving.

          She pokes her head in and sees angels. She doesn’t suddenly rejoice and think, “Angels! Oh that’s wonderful!” Nothing less than Jesus will do for Mary. She tells the angels that the body of Jesus has been taken away. She’s not interested in some message, she’s not interested in some angelic proclamation. She demands Jesus, and nothing less than Jesus will do.

          And then Jesus appears. Her single-minded focus on Jesus does not recognize him at first. She thinks he’s the gardener! But when he says her name, she knows exactly who it is. She knows it is Jesus whom her heart loves above all, and she knows the one who loves her. She hears his voice, she rejoices, she rushes to cling to him out of love. He tells her not to cling to his body but to go share the good news – the other disciples need to know that Christ is risen. Out of love for Jesus, she rushes back to share the Good News.

          Mary Magdalene is our icon of what it means to prefer nothing to the love of Christ.

          We’re called to love Jesus, and we’re called to celebrate his love for us, to place that love at the center of our lives.

          Christ loves us so deeply that he endured suffering and pain on the cross and rose triumphant from death. That is the love that conquers death, the love that washes away sin, the love that lifts up the downtrodden, the love that breaks every chain.

          And in living out this love of Christ we learn to see the power of his eternal life here and now. Too often we think of eternal life as something far off, unrelated to what we do today. But that’s not the case! We don’t live our life now and wait for eternal life in the future; we live in the power of that eternal, risen life now. We taste the powerful vividness of Christ’s risen life, his triumph over death, his everlasting and overflowing love for us, and we live differently. We start to live that eternal life now.

          We’re set free from the fear of death – because death is not the last word.

          We’re washed away from sin – nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, and each moment we can turn again to him.

          We who are downtrodden by the world, by cares, by fear and oppression, we are lifted up – nothing can take away our dignity or our belovedness, and we can work for justice and mercy for all, for Christ calls for every chain to be broken!

          The Resurrection is sweet comfort, and it is also boldness. We’re moved, we’re nudged, we’re strengthened to share the Good News in thought, word, and deed. We love Christ, and Christ loves us – and in that love that is stronger than death we bring comfort to a world that is weary, we bring boldness to a world that is despairing.

          Christ is raised from death that we may be comforted – he who shared our pains and suffering will share with us his triumph over death. Christ is raised from death that we may be emboldened – the work of God in this world will always bear fruit, and in Christ’s eternal life we have powerful hope.

          Mary Magdalene’s love of Christ, her devotion, her boldness are paired with the Good News. We see her love and dedication, we see her sadness and grief, we see her courage and strength.

          And her love spread the Gospel of the Risen Lord. She is Apostle to the Apostles – she knows the Resurrection, and, most importantly, she has seen Jesus whom she loves, and she has heard the voice of Jesus who loves her.

          She prefers nothing to the love of Christ, and we are grateful for that love. We gather two thousand years later after that wondrous morning, and we are linked in a chain of love. People through the centuries before us loved Christ and made him known, and they trusted in the love that Christ has for them and all creation. For two thousand years, Mary Magdalene’s boldness and consolation have echoed and resounded, proclaiming the eternal life of Christ that we all are blessed to share. With her, we share in the eternal life of Christ.

          Her life was transformed – may our lives be transformed so magnificently, too. May we prefer nothing to the love of Christ – may we prefer nothing to loving Christ, and may we prefer nothing to Christ’s love.

          Alleluia, Christ is Risen!           The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

---

[1] “Pange Lingua” as translated by JM Neale.

[2] Chapter 31, Mirabai Starr translation.

[3] From Chapter 4, “Of the Tools of Good Works.”

Palm Sunday

            During Holy Week we walk with Jesus along the way of the cross. We start his last week in mortal life with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, all the way to the last supper with the apostles and then his trial and crucifixion.

            Palm Sunday, then, is experienced as whiplash. We start with a lovely little procession, singing praise to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, and then that festive sense fades rapidly as we get to the Passion Narrative, reading the story of Jesus’ betrayal, trial, and his execution. Palm Sunday is the entirety of Holy Week in miniature, compressed tightly into a liturgical diamond.

            We aren’t walking the way of the cross literally. We’re not re-enacting it. Yes, while it’d be fun to have a donkey in the procession as we sing, but we’re not really re-enacting the entry into Jerusalem. No one’s “borrowing” a donkey from someone for Jesus to ride.

            And the foot washing at the last supper – we’re not re-enacting it. We don’t have one person washing everyone’s feet anymore. We’re not putting the ordained, or the “important” people in the place of Jesus. No, we’re washing each other’s feet as a sign of loving service in imitation of Jesus. Each of us have that call to love and serve, to be loved and to be served.

            And the trial and crucifixion – we do not nail someone to a cross, and we do not compete for the bloodiest, goriest vision of the crucifixion, either. The crucifixion is not a spectacle – that’s what the Romans wanted from the crucifixion. They wanted people to see a crucified body and remember that this is what happens to people who oppose the Roman Empire. Rome had the power to crucify you, and they wanted you to remember that every single day of your life.

            But as we follow Jesus this week, we remember something incredibly different: a love stronger than death, a love stronger than betrayal and rejection, a love poured out for you and me and all of creation.

            Holy Week is not a literal walking of the way of the cross as if we could ever re-create it to the smallest detail. Holy Week is a liturgical walking of the way of the cross in remembrance of the life and death of Christ. Holy Week is a giant prayer in remembrance of Christ.

            Palm Sunday, the Sunday of the Passion compresses all of Holy Week for us. Here it is in miniature: This is the story we are sitting with for the week ahead. We triumphantly process with palms waving, and then we turn and betray Christ and denounce him to Rome. We take on all the roles. No one is off the hook. And no one is condemned to be the villain alone, either. We bear the burden of the whole story together.

            And on Wednesday, Tenebrae, we sit in increasing darkness. We know how the story goes, we know how the story ends. Tenebrae gives us prayers and Scripture and wisdom to set the tone for the days to come.

            Maundy Thursday, we gather. At first it would feel like a normal Eucharist, kind of like how the Last Supper would have felt like a normal meal. But then Jesus kneels down and washes the feet of the disciples gathered. He takes on the role of a servant, a slave, in loving service. So we interrupt our Eucharistic rhythm and wash one another’s feet. In years past I disliked the footwashing, it felt off. But I think now I get it a little. The weirdness of it, the humanity of it is brought to the center. Do you love? Do you let yourself be loved? And then we return to Eucharist – which we do in remembrance of Christ, Sunday after Sunday. As Christ commands us on Maundy Thursday: “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

            And Good Friday – we tell the story again of Christ’s crucifixion. And what do we do? Do we wail and bemoan our sins and wickedness? No. Ash Wednesday focuses on repentance; Good Friday does not. (But, side note, if you want to make a private confession on Good Friday, let me know). Good Friday’s heart is praying for the world. The Solemn Collects of Good Friday pray for the whole world. The theological heart of Good Friday is that Christ so loved the whole world, that he would offer himself to be one of us and to live and die for us … and so we pray for the whole world. It is as if Christ commanded us, “Behold, I love the entirety of creation so much and so perfectly that I offer my life and death to heal you, to set you free, to sanctify you.” And so we pray that all creation may be healed, set free, and sanctified.

            This Holy Week we will include something a little different on Good Friday evening. Instead of repeating the liturgy of Good Friday’s noon service, we will sit at Jesus’ tomb together. We don’t often do that. I get our hesitation: we know about the resurrection. But we need to sit at the tomb anyway. We need to sit with mourning because mourning is something so profoundly holy that humans are not the only ones who mourn. Animals mourn, at least. We know animals can have broken hearts. I’ve seen it. Mourning and mortality are not reserved for us alone – creation shares in it with us. We proclaim our own mortality on Ash Wednesday – can we sit with one another’s mortality on the evening of Good Friday? Can we join Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene, and Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea at the tomb?

            And then, then finally the joy of Easter Vigil. Walking in darkness, knowing the great news that is to come, sharing not just the story of Jesus but the story of the whole creation’s redemption and salvation. It is good news for all creation!

            We walk this together as one large prayer. Just as in the Eucharist we lift up the bread and share it in remembrance of Jesus, and we lift up the cup of wine and drink it in remembrance of Jesus, so we walk the way of the cross in Holy Week in a prayer of remembrance of Jesus. We remember, we remember his love, we remember his love is everlasting.

 Let us pray.

      Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Rev. Joseph Farnes

All Saints, Boise

Lent 4B

March 10, 2024

          Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

            This links the Gospel reading to the Old Testament reading from this morning. The bronze serpent was a sign of healing. It was a sign of death and destruction that instead became the power of life for the Israelites. The Israelites would be bitten by a serpent, and then they would look on the bronze serpent and find healing. And it wasn’t just in Israelite culture that we find the serpent as a medical symbol – the staff of Asclepius, the single snake wrapped around a staff, has been a symbol of healing and medicine for millennia. (This is different from the caduceus, the one with two serpents and wings – that’s actually the symbol for business and commerce, not medicine)

That’s an important thing to recall – sometimes we see the cross made into “just” a symbol, a symbol for this or that social or political movement. The cross, for us, *is* an expression of God’s healing, an expression of God’s power over death, an instrument of everlasting life. We look on the cross, and we should plant ourselves firmly right in front of Christ – a Christ who was born for all, who lived for all, who died for all, who rose triumphant for all.

            We would do well to remember that the bronze serpent is later destroyed because it had become an idol. Either the cross is the loving life of Jesus Christ poured out for all, or it is no longer the true cross.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.    

            John’s Gospel is a book of powerful imagery, contradictions, contrasts. It is not a neat and tidy book – none of the Gospels are, but the Gospel of John is less a story told like the other Gospels; John’s Gospel is more a poem that evokes and hints.

            God loved the world – that is the starting point of our theology. God so loves the world. God so loves the world that God sends the Word, the Logos, God’s own self into the world. The Trinity is woven through in John’s Gospel.

            “So that everyone who believes in him” – how often this beautiful phrase is stripped of meaning by dogma. In John’s Gospel, who believes and who does not? It is not so clear-cut as some may want it to be. Nicodemus, the person that Jesus is talking to in this Gospel passage, seems not to believe. He comes to Jesus in the dark of night because he doesn’t want to be seen talking to Jesus in the daylight. He seems not to believe. The very next chapter, Jesus will talk to the Samaritan woman by the well in the bright light of the noonday, and she believes, and brings her whole town to believe. The contrast is clear! Nicodemus, a wise Jewish man, does not understand Jesus, his fellow Jew. But the Samaritan woman, she understands Jesus. She believes. But John does not say this is the end of the story. Nicodemus speaks in defense of Jesus, and he helps anoint and bury Jesus. He seems to believe in his own way. There is room in the story for everyone.

            Belief is not a black-or-white, yes-or-no way of thinking. Belief is not just how we feel in our heart. Belief is more – it is a way of life, an imperfect way of living that puts its trust in Jesus.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

            Some Christians, sadly, act as if God really wants to condemn the world, that God’s waiting in the wings with a lawbook to catch us on a technicality. What kind of image of God is that!

            God is not here to pass judgment – which is what the word “condemn” here means in Greek – but God sent God’s own self to save us. Salvation means healing, safety, restoring to life. Christ comes to us not to sit as judge but as a nurse, to bandage wounds, to take care of our brokenness, to comfort us in our pain. God has sent Jesus into the world to heal with his presence, to heal us and encourage us with his cross, and to bring us to the fullness of life and health. Imagine if we added an icon of “Jesus Christ the Nurse” to our collection of images!

 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

            Again, belief is not an act of thinking. Too much theology has been misled by that assumption. In years past, belief was all about thinking – having the right thoughts about Jesus and God, not being a heretic, saying the right thing to make sure you were “saved.” No.

            And belief is not an act of feeling, either. The pendulum of Christianity has swung between thinking and feeling through the centuries. Were you saved if you went to a revival and tearfully confessed all your sins and went up to the altar to be “saved”? What happened when that feeling faded? Belief is more than feeling, either.

            And thus not believing is more than thinking or feeling, either. People don’t believe in Jesus for a multitude of reasons – and so often it’s because we Christians have set a bad example of Christ.

And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

            “And this is the judgment.” Do you want to know what the word “judgment” here is in Greek? It’s Krisis. This is the crisis – that light has come into the world, and it exposes everything. This is the judgment – that we know what is good and right, and we don’t do it. This is our condemnation – that we could love and nurse and care for the wounded and hurting, care for one another, care for the stranger, and we let the world go on the way it is.

            The light has come into the world and shown us what is good and right, and it shows us what we keep preferring and doing.

            But, again, I remind you: Christ has not come into the world to condemn it, judge it, incarcerate it or execute it. Jesus has come into the world to heal it with his life everlasting. And he calls you and me to do our best to heal, too. To be healed inside – to join in healing others – to join in healing a whole world.

            We do not lift up the cross as a sign of triumph and power. We lift up the cross like a first aid tent, as a field hospital in a refugee camp. We lift up the cross as a sign of healing and hope for all the world. This is the sign that we can look upon and be healed, and this is the sign under which we bring healing to others, no matter who they are. Amen.